Marsh Air Museum

Monday the 19th

Quiet time today. Laundry, shopping and a little pool.

Tuesday the 20th

Another beautiful day. We have really been fortunate with the weather this winter. Yes, we had some cold weather in Florida, but for the most part we have had nice, warm sunny days. Just what we wanted rather than the cold, cloudy and rainy days typical of a northwest winter. It's really nice to be able to take the kids out at 7:00 AM in short sleeve shirts and shorts.

We had a lazy morning. Tina made French Toast for breakfast and after cleaning up I checked on the markets to find that everything is doing well and it definitely looks like the worst is over.

Today we planned to go to Marsh Field Aviation Museum (http://www.marchfield.org/) over in San Bernardino, about twenty-three miles from here. We got to the museum which sits on a portion of the March Air Reserve Base field about 10:30 AM and paused at the War Memorial just outside the entrance. Even though the Museum has a dedicated hanger with WWI artifacts, it is primarily a static display with over 60 planes outside.

We entered the museum and spent half an hour walking around and talking to staff about the displays, then we moved outside for the next two hours. The planes on display range from the 1930's through the 1970's. It's a really incredible display with freighters, transports, fighters, bombers and trainers. Especially impressive is a B-52G in desert camo.

Another hanger is dedicated to the restoration of P-38's where there is a full scale replica on display. Rather than go into a lot of detail on what we saw, go to our photo site.

After leaving the March Air Museum we stopped for lunch at Del Taco, oh well, it was only one meal. During lunch we decided to try and find the Perris Lake Recreation Area and find the kayak launch. About six miles southeast of the museum we headed up into the hills to find a man made reservoir and a huge, beautiful park with lots of green grass, shade trees and picnic tables.

After getting a temporary pass from the ranger we drove to the west end of the lake next to the dam and found the put-in. It was just like Lower Otay where we could drive right to the edge of the water, park and unload. Leaving the park by the Western exit we dropped down to Ramona Blvd which too us all the way to Sanderson. Turning right on Sanderson we drove six miles to Hemet and with a quick right on W Florida Ave, pulled into our camp.

The rest of the day we hung out and got the site ready for rain.

To see all our photos, click on:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjdolanski